Column attempts lopsided re-litigation of Civil War

Nicholas Patler, invited guest columnist, recently wrote that Robert E. Lee led the charge to keep the monster of slavery alive. The lopsided re-litigation of the Civil War continues. With columns like Mr. Patler's, one can lose all hope that Stauntonians are capable of analyzing multifaceted issues.

No one advocating for removal of the name of Lee High School faces even one-tenth of the life and death decisions facing Americans before the Civil War, including Lee. Here was his choice: go along with Lincoln's plan to occupy the South by force or resist. Sorry, but it wasn't just about the place of African Americans. The weightier matter that gnawed at Lee and others was that in 1861 the Federal government in Washington swelled the federal army from a solely defensive force of 16,000 to a Southern invasion force of over 75,000. Those armed 75,000 were to be led by people that Lee knew very well and that was his dread. Lee knew the temperament of the men who would come to occupy and govern America's homes and communities. One example was General Philip Sheridan who in 1864 had a temper tantrum and ordered the burning of Dayton, Virginia. That order was eventually resisted by Sheridan’s troops but not before Federal forces looted the area and pushed unarmed civilians into the hills. Lee predicted that nothing good would come from submitting to Washington D.C. whose policy was invasion, occupation and subjugation of its own people. He resisted through the Virginia state militias. He chose to oppose dictatorship foremost. Along the way he hoped for the death of slavery and said so.

So columnists, writers, editors, and "the name hurts" folks: Are you superhuman and able to tackle every evil at once? What decision of national weight did you ever have to decide? Like Lee, you are limited and must decide what comes first.